Blog

The "Scan Everything" Challenge

Having a professional scanning service digitise your media is a great way to protect your data. Many people don’t realise just how much of their media is scannable, and therefore can be made more secure. We’re setting out to change that.

Most people are aware that photos can be scanned, but they don’t realise that this is only the beginning when it comes to preserving your photographic memories. You can back up your family’s history and memories, in images, so that they can never be lost due to a flood, fire, or because of a misplaced box during a move. In addition to individual photographs and entire photo albums, Pearl Scan can also scan a wide variety of negative formats, as well as 35 mm slides, and transparencies.

These memories are irreplaceable if left in physical form, and priceless to you—don’t take the risk of losing them.

Book pages being scannable probably isn't a surprise, but did you know that you could have your entire library scanned and returned to you intact? Pearl Scan offers both destructive (unbound) and non-destructive (bound) scanning services for books and magazines. The results can be transferred to a wide variety of different formats, including PDF, searchable PDF, Microsoft Word, and ebook formats compatible with many different platforms.

For many people the idea of being able to reclaim the space taken up by their books and still have access to their contents is ideal. For those customers, destructive scanning is perfect—their books are disposed of and their contents returned in digital form. But some people like to keep their physical books, and many scanning companies offer only destructive scanning.

Not so at Pearl. Not only do we try to meet our “scan everything” challenge with every client, we also try to meet their needs in other ways. We offer a non-destructive scanning service suitable for use with the most rare, delicate, or damaged books, and we’ll return your books in exactly the same condition.

How is Paper Harmful?

Paper is a necessity in many office circumstances. A cheap commodity, it is made out of one of the most sustainable materials on the planet. However producing paper does come with an environmental cost. Below we highlight why paper is harmful to the environment and how you can reduce paper consumption.

Deforestation

Over 6.5 million trees were cut down in 2006 in order to make less than 50% of the paper cups used in the US. And with 46-58 thousand square miles of forest lost each year, at the current rate of deforestation, it is estimated that the world’s rainforests could completely vanish in a hundred years. As trees play a key part in absorbing the greenhouse gasses that drive global warming, deforestation also drives climate change. Fewer forests mean that larger amounts of greenhouse gases are entering the atmosphere – and as a result, speed up the impact of global warming.

Paper Production has adverse effects on the environment

The process of turning trees into paper is not an easy one. Papermaking is an intensive process that releases harmful chemicals into water. It takes over 40 chemicals – such as chlorine and magnesium hydroxide – to turn that rough, brown tree into the smooth white paper you know. And of course those chemicals are pumped out by paper mills every single day, contributing to air, water and land pollution, and as a result add to global warming just like any other pollutant.

Paper in landfill

Despite recycling having increased over the last couple of years, millions of tonnes of recyclable paper still end up in landfills. In fact, it’s estimated that the average UK family throws away six trees’ worth of paper in their household bin a year – all of which could be recycled with very little effort. And did you know that the methane produced by landfills is 21 times more harmful than c02?

Paper recycling

So recycling is the answer? Not necessarily. While it is more environmentally friendly then sending your unwanted paperwork to landfill, however the recycling process itself still produces a lot of pollutants. From the exhaust fumes roaring out of recycling lorries, to the energy used at recycling plants, the whole process is still very harmful for the environment.

Reducing paper consumption

Document scanning is the perfect way to start reducing your paper consumption and making your office or workspace completely paperless. It may seem like a big change at first, however you’ll soon realise that going paperless has numerous benefits for you and your business, while also helping to reduce the environmental impacts of paper consumption.

Dungeons & Dragons Publisher Pays you for your Old Rule Book

When tackling the annual spring clean or deciding to de-clutter your home, it is very common to come across piles of photographs, manuals, letters and other documents that seem worthless or unneeded to us anymore, and great satisfaction is achieved by throwing them out to clear up space. How often, after disposing of such documents however, do you wonder if there was any value in those historic items?

Fans of popular fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons from all over the world have been searching their houses high and low, in the hope that they have held on to their old rule books, as an opportunity has risen for them to cash in from the relics of their gaming past. Dungeons and Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast and role playing game store DriveThru RPG are reaching out to the Dungeons and Dragons community and asking them for digital, scanned versions of old rule books in exchange for a $50 cash incentive.

Although the exact reasons for doing so are unknown, it is thought that the groups are launching the campaign in order to preserve the cultural history of the game, so each title is available for fans old and new to browse through online in years to come. To help in their quest for building a rulebook archive, a spreadsheet has been made publically available via Google Docs, listing the titles that are needed to build an entire collection for eager Dungeons and Dragons fans to refer to, all over the world. An FAQ sheet has also been compiled by the gaming companies, asking those possessing the missing rule books to submit a high quality scan of each page in order to receive the money on offer. Needless to say, Pearl Scan have been searching high and low ourselves for a sought after rulebook but - alas - we have access to quality scanning solutions, but have no way of knowing the dexterity points of a Level 4 Cleric.

By using document scanning as a method for gathering and storing the data, it means that Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts with the missing handbooks can hold on to the original manual for sentimental value, whilst still contributing towards a virtual data base for other fans to enjoy.

Wizards of the Coast and DriveThru RPG may not be the only organisations utilising the worldwide reach of the internet and the instant accessibility that document scanning can achieve. Next time you consider throwing out old papers, it may be worth scanning in and reserving the documents prior to disposal – you never know when they may be of use...

Why is a Paperless Office Desirable?

How many times have you heard the term ‘paperless office’? No, it’s not a myth, it’s actually something that can be easily integrated into any working environment thanks to technology.

Here are 10 reasons why you should think about going paperless:

1. Easy storage and file-sharing

We’ll start with an obvious one. Going paperless means that all the documents coming into your office can immediately be scanned and electronically stored with minimal effort. This makes it easier to send all relevant information to everyone who needs it.

2. Time savings

A paperless office means that time spent looking for documents is a thing of the past. Searches can be done quickly and efficiently, producing results in seconds. As all the documents are stored in the same organised manner, they and are easy to retrieve, review and edit.

3. More space

Another obvious point, however an important one nonetheless. A reduction in paper documents means that you’ll have more space than you could’ve dreamed of.

4. Accessibility

Digital documents allow multiple users to access files simultaneously. This makes life much easier for instances when more than one user needs access to a single document – or in cases when the individuals are on multiple sites.

5. Reduced costs

Printing hard copies of documents requires many different elements. Paper and printers both cost money to replace and upkeep, whereas storing files is a low cost way to keep all documents in one, secure place.

6. Help the environment

The environmental costs of paper production have been well-documented, however by cutting down on your paper consumption, you are helping reduce your company’s carbon footprint – which can then be included in your CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) strategy.

7. Security

Unlike paper documents, digital files can be stored on secure servers. This means that only authorised users are able to retrieve certain documents, severely reducing the chance of it falling into the wrong hands.

8. Never lose anything again

How many times have you lost a paper file? Digital documents are secure and usually backed up by servers, meaning that endless searching for documents becomes a thing of the past.

9. Easy recovery

Recovering destroyed paper documents is extremely hard. As electronic documents can be easily backed-up and stored offsite or in a cloud, keeping electronic documents off-site is a much more effective method of ensuring that you never lose that all-important file.

10. No need for waste disposal

In today’s conscious society, we are encouraged to recycle almost everything. However the amount of waste paper that one office produces means that disposing of this comes at a cost. By minimising your paper consumption, you will save both time and money on waste disposal.

A Digital Mailroom Can Increase Productivity

A functioning mailroom is an important part of any business, with huge amounts of company crucial information filtering through the post department every day. As mail volumes grow however, operating a traditional mail room with manual handling of documents can be slow, labour intensive and inefficient compared to operating with a revolutionary digital mailroom system. At Pearl Scan our Digital Mailroom services have helped many UK businesses improve their productivity for a number of different reasons.

Reduce the Risk of Lost Information

How many times has an important deadline been missed due to lost mail, or a customer has received less than perfect service due to an unorganised mailroom system? A digital mailroom service can create a digital data base of all incoming post, meaning that no file is ever lost in the depths of a physical archive. This improved visibility of documents can ensure no vital correspondence ever goes under the radar, speeding up workflows as a result.

No Geographic Limitations

As the internet and digital technology has shifted the ways many companies operate, businesses can easily develop across many cities or countries and many employees are now working remotely. This geographic expansion is made easier and more streamlined by implementing a digital mailroom solution, as all necessary information can be delivered to staff, worldwide and in an instant by using digital mail.

Text Searchable Archiving

Once all collected mail has been carefully prepared and scanned in high quality, we index the documents and process them with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) so that staff can quickly search their internal database for the letter or document needed to help them with their day. Time is saved that would be previously spent searching though physical archives or unorganised filing systems with the use of a digital mailroom system.

Relief from Time Consuming Manual Tasks

When businesses use our expert digital mailroom services, we collect a company’s mail every morning, cutting out the need for mail to even be delivered to an office at all. We carefully filter, sort and prepare all documentation carefully for scanning too, based on given criteria set by business owners before successful delivery of mail to its end user. All physical and manual work involved with operating a traditional mailroom is taken away, meaning staff can be re-deployed to spend more time on other valuable tasks to help in the running of a business.

Find out everything you need to know about Pearl Scan’s digital mailroom and how it could benefit your business by clicking here.

The month of May will soon be upon us and that is the time when the new GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) will come into force. All businesses, no matter their size, will have to comply if they deal[…]

Converting hard copy microfiche into digital files enabling easy access for you.Many sectors have found that their film and other hard copy storage methods are becoming outdated in this increasingly digital society. Paper, cassette tapes and microfiche were once not[…]

There’s no denying that data is what makes the business world go aroundAnd in a world that is reliant on technology to get everyday tasks done, businesses need to embrace digital processes – or risk being left behind, according to[…]